White Wolf
by lastarael
Summary: An elven-born skin-changer and his wolf pack encounter the Nine Walkers on their quest.
1. Mithril's Pack

White Wolf

Summary: An elven-born skin-changer and his wolf pack encounter the Nine Walkers.

Disclaimer: If I owned it, it wouldn't be called fanfiction. If you don't recognize a name, then either the character belongs to me, or you need to study up on your Tolkien. The idea for this story is mine, inspired by my love of wolves and my fascination with Tolkien's Beorn. Please don't steal.

Mithril's Pack

Mithril closed his eyes, sniffing the wind for the signals it sent him. Squirrels moved cautiously high above him, among the trees of the Misty Mountains, carefully out of reach of the wolf. An occasional bird passed overhead, but other than that, the area was empty. Mithril could ask one or two to give their lives to sustain the five hungry wolves, but conscience denied him that choice.

The great white wolf-changer sighed and turned back to his pack, the four loyal wolves that he had led for years – the few wolves around still independent of Sauron and his allies. His body language and low whine signaled his disappointment at the lack of game, and the large black beta wolf Ranyar, his second-in-command, whined back in question. Mithril cocked his head as he ran through the list of possibilities.

Finally Mithril turned his head toward Eregion, the region men call Hollin, and signaled for the wolves to follow. Ranyar fell in behind. Following a few feet back was Raina, a good-natured dark gray female. After her was Vasar, a small reddish-gray female. Last came Ausa, a light gray male with an extraordinary sense of hearing. All hoped that they would find game more plentiful in Eregion.

Two days later, after one brief rest and several stops to find water when snow was not abundant, the pack arrived at the edge of Eregion. Mithril slowed warily, sensing something amiss in the region. Ranyar, Raina, Vasar, and the young Ausa spread out behind in defensive stance. All probed with their ears and noses to find what their eyes could not: a sign of animal life. Mithril sniffed about, locating the stale scents of deer, foxes, rabbits, ground squirrels, and many birds. All of the scents were weeks old. Turning to Ausa, his eyes asked what the gray wolf heard. Ausa made no move, and Mithril knew that his friend had heard no creature stir.

Lowering his head and tail in defeat, Mithril snuffed into the grass, dissapointed. Raina approached, chin and tail nearly scraping the ground in deference to her leader. She whined comfortingly and lightly licked beneath his chin. Ausa did the same, followed by Ranyar and Vasar. Encouraged by his pack's show of support, Mithril lifted his head. As resolution returned to him, his tail drifted up. His animal instinct urged him to lead the pack in hunt song, but a howl in unknown country could have dire consequences.

Moments later he expanded his chest and loped forward once more, setting his long stride to that of the tireless wolves. He was determined to find game for his hungry pack, and if hunting proved fruitless, he would do what he must for them to survive – even if that meant straying close to humanity.

Mithril, once known to elves and men as Celebriner, had left civilization long ago. His white hair, yellowish wolf-like eyes, and odd habits marked him as forever different, an outcast. He learned to survive in the wild and grew to like his wolf shape more and more, eventually meeting up with the wolves that would make up his pack. Now he could not remember the last time he had taken elven shape.

Perhaps, he pondered as he loped along, it had been at his first meeting with Beorn. The pack had stumbled upon the gruff bear skin-shifter somewhere in Mirkwood decades ago, and though Beorn had no love for wolves of Sauron, he had quickly warmed to another of his kind. There was another opportunity for food in Beorn, but Mithril hated to beg food off a friend. He'd much rather steal from the hated human race, slaughtering their livestock for food. It was an easy living, catching the slow, fat animals, but one Mithril was cautious of, and used only as a last resort.

For the present, the white wolf led his pack south through Eregion, thinking of the once-bountiful lands of the Horse-lords, the Rohirrim. Perhaps the game had moved there since the pack had last visited the area several summers ago.

A sudden, muffled woof from Ausa warned him to stop. He turned quickly to see what the gray wolf had heard. Ausa was staring intently to the south, in the direction they had been running. Mithril turned back and listened, hoping to hear the sound of some sort of game. He cocked his head, unable to hear what Ausa had heard, but caught a faint whiff of people.

Four of the odors were similar to each other but unfamiliar to the wolves. Mithril noted the food smells that emanated from the four, especially, and a cold, metallic scent hanging about one of the four. Two smells belonged to humans, both of which lived in areas out of the pack's range, one to a dwarf, easy to recognize by their usual stench of earth and rock, one to an elf, a refreshing perfume of flowers, trees, and other growing things, and one to – Mithril paused – an Istari. The pony, seemingly being led by one of the strange-scented creatures, excited Mithril's hunger, in the savory smell of horse flesh as well as the food crammed into packs connected to the beast. The overall scent screamed to the wolves that this group was by no means thrilled about whatever their journey called for. Vasar noticed a faint line of antagonism in an odd breeze, and this was silently communicated among the wolves.

The pack had frozen behind him. They looked to him for a decision.

Mithril's hunger and curiosity won out over his fear of people. He signaled the pack to approach carefully. They trotted silently for a couple miles, then slowed until they were within sight of the strange group. Hiding beneath a meager bush, Mithril saw that the elf was already alert to their presence, but was not surprised. Though the pack was well-hidden and had made virtually no noise, Mithril knew well the sensitivity of elves. The elf continued to stare in their direction, but did not smell or appear overly alarmed, simply wary. As one of the humans approached him, words were exchanged, but at that moment Mithril was distracted by Vasar's quiet, pleading whine. She was uncomfortable this close to humans, as was the rest of the pack, and wished to leave the people far behind. A low growl from Mithril told her that he had decided that they would stay for the moment, and his word was still law in the pack. When he turned back, the Istari had joined the elf and human, and the rest of the camp had fallen silent and still, watching the ones Mithril decided were the leaders.

"…move on, or send someone out to investigate?" the gray wizard asked in a whispered Westron, the Common Tongue.

"I see no reason to flee until we find that this presence Legolas has sensed is a threat," the man replied.

"Yet I would prefer to err on the side of caution," the wizard warned. Turning to the elf, he asked, "what kind of creature is this thing? Can you tell?"

The elf, Legolas, shook his head hesitantly. "There are more than one, I know. They are…partly natural…yet partly not. I can feel nothing else."

"Partly not…" both man and Istari murmured, unsatisfied.

"Aragorn and I could approach whatever they may be, and find if they are indeed a threat," Legolas said. The Istari looked undecided, then shook his head. One of the small, strange-smelling people behind him shifted uneasily.

"No," the gray one said. "We do not wish to alert these things to our presence if they are unaware. We should continue on our path now, and put off our meal until we are certain of our safety and of the safety of our quest."

The mention of a quest was curious to Mithril, but the thought of a meal pushed him to a quick decision. He and his pack would trail this odd group and steal some food in the night. Many bundles in the camp smelled of different types of food, and Mithril was hungry enough to resort to thievery. It didn't occur to him to ask for food. He knew without thinking that such an approach would be fruitless. With a look to each of his pack members, he silently let them know his plan. Vasar's lip twitched in protest, but she said nothing.

Crouched among the brush and rocks, Mithril's pack lie in wait. When the strange group was finished packing and had erased all of the visual signs of their camp, the wolves stood up and followed them silently, light and dark shadows flickering across Eregion.

*****

Mithril – _Truesilver_

Ranyar – _Wanderer_

Raina – _Smiler_

Vasar – _Veil_

Ausa – _Apparition_

Celebriner – _Silver One_

A/N – Coming up next: focus on the Fellowship as they face this new threat…or is it?

Please review! Questions/comments/criticism welcome.

~~Astarael~~


	2. On the Path Through Hollin

White Wolf

See chapter one for summary and disclaimer. Also, note that chapter one has been edited since it was first written. If you're coming back for the second chapter, you might want to reread the first.

This part of the story is derived from _The Fellowship of the Rings_, Book Two, Chapter Three: "The Ring Goes South."

On the Path Through Hollin

All that night the Fellowship walked, hoping to distance themselves from the _crebain_ and whatever else was watching them. Aragorn led the way through Hollin, finding the easiest paths for the weary hobbits. As they walked, with Legolas keeping watch at the back of the company, quieted conversations lilted through the air. Pippin complained to Gandalf that he was once again missing his long-awaited meal. Sam whispered to Frodo of his wishes for the journey to soon be over. Pippin and Merry mused longingly about the feasts they would have at the end of this quest. Gimli spoke of Dwarrowdelf in his low, growling voice, to whoever would listen. The only other sounds were the fatigued trod of the hobbits, the thumping stride of the dwarf, the quiet tread of Aragorn, Boromir, and Gandalf, and the harsh ring of Bill's hooves on the dirt and occasional stone. Legolas made no sound.

Several times Aragorn turned back to Legolas, to find what he had heard. The elf could not hear or see whatever was following them, but he still felt their presence, trailing at a great distance.

"I do not feel that they or their intent are evil," he told Aragorn at one time during the night, "yet I also do not know that they have our best interests in mind."

"Do you think that they are a threat to us?" the Ranger asked him.

Legolas sighed in mild frustration. "I do not know. It is possible."

Aragorn understood the elf's sentiments. He, too, wished to find out what was following them, but Gandalf continued to refuse them an opportunity to track and identify the creatures. True, the Company had not yet been approached or attacked, and Legolas's senses had not identified them as servants of evil, but in Aragorn and Legolas's minds, a threat still remained.

The mysterious creatures stayed with them the rest of that night, but during the day of hiding only _crebain_ were seen. The Fellowship wondered anxiously about the disappearance of their followers at first, but the hobbits eventually relaxed at Gandalf's reassurances. The wizard speculated that whatever had been following them had decided that the group wasn't worth their time and departed, yet a sense of foreboding still troubled the minds of Aragorn and Legolas. The Walkers would bide their time, it seemed, to discover what was to become of this new menace.

*****

Mithril snarled silently in exasperation. The strange group had taken to travelling at night, when the wolves would have had an opportunity to steal food. During each day, while the people were occupied with concealing themselves from the strange birds that passed overhead, he and his pack went out to hunt, leaving one member to watch the group's movements, or lack thereof.

The first day of hunting was very uneventful. The hunting party circled through Hollin, noting each old foxhole and rabbit den, each spring that deer might frequent, each burrow that might house a ground squirrel or some other small animal. Mithril was baffled by the complete absence of life. But for the large crows that flew overhead, far out of reach, the pack and the strange group seemed to be the only living creatures in all of Eregion.

Hunger gnawed at the wolves as it had very few times before, only in seasons of famine. Mithril knew that this was not one of them, or shouldn't have been. The lack of game seemed much too strange and abrupt to be natural. The white wolf-changer strongly suspected the forces of evil as the cause of this phenomenon, but had little to go by other than his intuition. The intimation that laid heavily on his mind was an increased number of collisions with Wargs, the huge wolves of Sauron, east of the Misty Mountains, as well as new, mysterious howls coming from the lands near Isengard. No love was lost between Mithril's pack and Sauron's minions. Wild wolves had lost many of their number to the viscous ways of the Wargs, and had quickly learned to avoid any Warg pack. Several years before, the eldest member of Mithril's pack, Faroth, had been slain by four of Sauron's wolves. The pack now went out of its way to avoid large groups of the beasts, but could maim or kill a lone Warg, and did so whenever it got the chance. The more Wargs there were, the harder it was for Mithril's pack to hunt, and their range became more and more limited by the ever-increasing presence of the fell creatures.

Before the Necromancer had begun polluting the southern regions of Mirkwood, surrounding Dol Guldur, Mithril had led his pack freely through the great forest of the elves, being sure to avoid only troublesome spiders and Silvan hunting parties. The Misty Mountains and the lands to the west and south had also occasionally been hunting grounds, as no other pack had laid claim on the territory, and Mithril was also fond of frequenting the Long Lake and Erebor, the Lonely Mountain. Several times during periods where game was hard to find, the pack had strayed as far north as Ered Mithrin, the Grey Mountains, and as far south as the plains of Rohan. Few lands east of the rivers surrounding Eregion did Mithril scorn to travel, save for the southern lands of Mordor and Gondor. Mordor was inhabited by the evil Wargs and other such fell beings, and Gondor had been claimed by another strong pack. Gondor's pack had been through the reign of several alphas during the time of Mithril's leadership, since skin-shifters tended to have much longer life-spans than the common animals which they took shape as, yet Mithril couldn't help but feel some contempt for the other pack's constantly changing hierarchy. True, the members of his pack changed nearly as often, but his role as alpha male remained unchallenged, for his mind was like that of the Children of Ilúvatar.

And at the moment, Mithril's mind was on this strange group of travelers, and the prospect of food forthcoming from the odd company. He knew the pack's hunger was driving them to the edge of madness, and would do whatever had to be done to provide food for his starving wolves.

*****

__

Faroth: Hunter

A/N – Coming up next: the hunt continues…and pony is now on the menu!

Please review! Note that the number of reviews is directly related to the time it takes for the next chapter to be posted….Ok, not really, but the reviews _are_ a great source of inspiration for me. So please take 30 seconds out of your day, and it will make my week. :)

~~Astarael~~


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